


Swear the Room, Yeah, It Got No Ceiling

by RurouniHime



Series: Urban Architecture [4]
Category: The Maze Runner (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Bathtub Sex, Boys In Love, Childhood Friends, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, Fluff and Angst, Graysexual Newt, Hotel Sex, Internal Conflict, M/M, Memories, Mutual Pining, New York City, Post-Break Up, Property Law, Propositions, Sexual Content, Stressed Thomas, Vacation, west coast VS east coast
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-14
Updated: 2018-11-14
Packaged: 2019-08-23 12:25:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,076
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16618925
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RurouniHime/pseuds/RurouniHime
Summary: It seemed like a good idea at the time, getting out of there. Thomas surely needed it.(Wherein Newt tries to fix a problem and instead uncovers another.)





	Swear the Room, Yeah, It Got No Ceiling

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Sheeijan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sheeijan/gifts).



> For Sheeijan, who is a star commenter and loves this universe so much it makes me weep with joy. Sheeijan asked me for a fic dealing with the differences between west and east coast policy in Thomas and Newt's jobs. Thank you so much, my dear. I hope this hits the spot. 
> 
> This story comes after all the other fics in the Urban Architecture timeline. I realized, horribly, that I screwed up in my plotting for this series, so MINOR changes have been made to _Got No Plans to Make It Stop_ , one of the other fics in this 'verse as a result. It shouldn't affect that story all that much. All the same, I am so sorry.

_I might get to too much talking  
I might have to tell you something._

 

It’s Friday. Thomas drops his bag and sprawls on Newt’s couch with a sigh. His coat flares either side of him, a strange set of wings.

Newt has Chinese on the kitchen counter and a full season of Great British Bake Off queued up on the television for shits and giggles. He breathes a laugh and reaches down, threads his fingers through Thomas’s hair. “Alright there?”

“It’s so different over here. The zoning ordinance and all the stupid—” Thomas’s fingers clench around something invisible. “—municipal _loopholes_ are just…”

“Bloody ludicrous.”

“Highway robbery.” Thomas cracks an eye open and peers up at Newt. “You know they’re ‘sprucing up’ the Tenderloin?”

Newt sobers. He traces a thumb over Thomas’s temple, back and forth. “I heard.”

“Already evicting people. Like they can afford the Castro or fucking Nob Hill. All these lousy councils. It’s just a bunch of nepotism, I can’t get anything done. In New York, I’d have been through their shit in a month.” His eye slips shut again and his brow pinches. “A fucking _month.”_

Newt worries his lower lip with the end of his tongue. “Well, you always did enjoy a challenge.”

 _“Yes.”_ Quick as light, Thomas snares his hand and presses his mouth to Newt’s knuckles. But the energy fades; Thomas drops back onto the couch. “I’m just… tired of it. They all act like I don’t know what I’m talking about. I know their screwed up laws better than they do, I’ve read them enough. But they just say, if you can’t take the heat…”

Newt sighs and sits down next to him. “It’s a type of hazing. Plain and simple. And jealousy,” he adds. “Trust me, they all know about you.”

“Excuse me for having ambition.”

“That’s not what you have, though, is it? What you’ve got,” he says, poking Thomas in the chest, “is a moral code.”

“So do you. So does Minho, and Brenda, and Gally.”

Newt rocks his head back and forth. “Yeah, but we’ve learned how to be docile about it. Or we’ve been taught. You, Tommy, you’re a gust of fresh air that no one’s ready to breathe yet.”

He expects a tart retort—Thomas is often tart lately—but Thomas only sinks further into the couch, his expression drawing long and morose. He stares blankly at Newt’s tiny coffee table. The lines around his mouth have gotten deeper.

Newt rises to his feet and heads for the kitchen, but stops at the mouth of the little front hall, feeling empty-handed and aimless. He plucks his keys out of the bowl and rolls them around in his palm, watching light slide over the metal. “How much vacation do you have saved?”

For a moment, Thomas doesn’t move. Then he sits up slowly, knees lifting as he teeters on the verge of falling back. “Enough for whatever you’re planning, I hope.”

Newt flicks a smile at him and turns back to messing with his keys. “Let’s go back east.” 

A pause. “East coast?”

“Yeah.” _Put them down, you idiot._ He sets the keys back in the bowl and turns. “Big Apple. Let’s just take a week.”

Thomas’s mouth opens and closes. “You want to go to NYC?”

“Sure. Didn’t get to see much the last time, not sights anyway.”

Thomas’s mouth only shivers, but the smile lights his eyes entirely. He gets up from the couch, and by the time he makes it to Newt’s side, he’s grinning. “You really want to go?”

Newt looks him over and snorts. “In a New York minute.” 

Thomas laughs.

**

Pushing through the crowd toward baggage claim at Newark Liberty International—cheaper, Thomas insisted—has Newt reconsidering the intelligence of this venture. Thomas’s joy is palpable, that endless energy radiating in great huffs, and at first Newt just enjoys it, amused as Thomas yammers on and on, ticking things off on his fingers. 

Now, the enthusiasm is getting a little hard to ignore, in a very specific way.

“God, I love this.” Thomas pushes around a meandering block of tourists, reaching for the walk button and rolling his suitcase to a stop behind him. “You don’t just march out into the street here. I mean, you do, but damn it, drivers _yell_ at you here for being an idiot. Took me forever to get used to that.”

Newt shoves his free hand into his coat pocket and follows Thomas across the street, pulling his bag. “There’s just no saving spoilt Californians, is there?”

“No chance in hell. Ah, here we go.” They’re at the base of a monstrous façade, the building stretching up and up in an array of windows that reflect the sinking sun. It’s clearly a flashy hotel, nicer than what Newt is used to, but Thomas did this part of the reservations and all Newt knows is the name of it.

“Bloody hell,” Newt drawls, eyeing the entirety of the building, and Thomas laughs. 

“I once came here for a conference, and this one guy had a cocktail party out of his suite at the top. Amazing room. This place is my favorite.”

Their room is very high, but not penthouse, which Newt would have kicked Thomas for on principle. The elevator starts out full, but clears slowly the higher they go, until the two of them are standing alone, watching the numbers climb. Thomas leans over, his voice low despite their solitude. 

“I’ve always wanted to bring you here,” he confesses.

Newt peers at him, eyebrows high. “Room’s that good, huh?”

Thomas shrugs, but there’s a hitch to it, embarrassment beneath the surface. “The minute I saw that suite, I thought of you in it.”

There is something peculiar about his tone, the sense of an iceberg breaking the surface while something much larger slopes away beneath. Newt takes a deep breath, meets Thomas’s eyes and holds them until the elevator finally dings their floor.

His heart rabbits as they open their room—double doors with shiny gold handles. The floor is quiet, either deserted or just very well insulated. He knows what luxury suites entail, of course, but the reality of the tastefully decorated foyer, the rooms opening either side, and the sizeable windows he can see through one of the doorways leaves him openmouthed. He forgets his suitcase at the door and wanders further in, turning in the center of a large living space complete with an ‘L’ couch and a small counter with barstools. “Did you—?”

Thomas shakes his head once, and Newt clams up. This is their vacation, and they agreed not to pester each other about expenses. At least, not until later. Anyway, this is ostensibly for Thomas and Newt isn’t about to ruin any of it for him.

He retrieves his suitcase instead and rolls it into the bedroom, just as lavish as the sitting room with a balcony attachment that he can only see half of. There’s an en suite bathroom with an ample shower stall and an absolutely criminal jacuzzi tub that Newt will just… leave alone for now. Already his pulse is quickening, the sumptuousness of everything easing under his skin. God, he never stays in places like this, but he thinks he could be converted. Quite easily.

Thomas has followed him into the bedroom and is looking around with a satisfied quirk to his lips. His eyes land on Newt and Newt feels his face heat, remembering Thomas’s earlier words.

“I’ll just…” Newt thumbs over his shoulder to the closet, then drags both their suitcases in.

He’s not really one to unpack into a hotel room, but they _are_ going to be here for a week, and he’d rather not astound NYC with a load of wrinkly shirts; he might as well use what’s here. They’ve got plenty of hooks for his clothes and Thomas’s anyway, and then some. 

He comes back out of the offensively enormous closet—there’s a bloody shoe cabinet taller than Newt is—to find Thomas, his shoes and socks gone and his toes dug down into the carpet, watching him from beside the bed. The late afternoon light spills in through the window, unhindered by the gauzy inner curtains. Thomas’s hands are in his pockets, dragging the material of his trousers tight against his front. They’re Newt’s favorite trousers on him: worn in at the thighs and scraggly at the hems. He looks tired and beautiful, and he’s staring at Newt like he’s the only thing in the room.

“Hey.”

Newt swallows and concentrates on toeing his shoes off. The carpet really is lovely, all deep and plush, devouring his feet. “Hey. Welcome back.”

“You, too.” Thomas watches him for a moment, then tilts his head at the bed. “You in the mood for this?”

Newt’s not sure. But he steps forward anyway and slides his hands through Thomas’s hair, slowly, until it’s ruffled all out of sorts. “Tell me how you imagined it. Here.”

Thomas’s eyes darken from his first touch. They sink shut as Newt works his fingertips against Thomas’s scalp, then spring open again. Thomas traces his fingers along Newt’s jaw, down his throat. “You,” he croaks. “Center of the bed.”

“Hm.” Newt runs a hand over the mattress—it really is a massive bed—undoing the buttons of his shirt with the other hand. “Are you on this bed with me?”

Thomas makes a low moaning sound down in his throat. Newt watches him rein himself in, notes the fists tight at Thomas’s sides. A year ago, Thomas wouldn’t even have known to check himself like this, but the wistfulness over that is fading and a delicious bone-deep ache is settling into its place. Newt tilts his head at the bed, much as Thomas did. Thomas moves quickly to follow, bumping the mattress with his knees just as Newt sits down. Thomas catches himself on one hand, bent at the waist and abruptly right in Newt’s sphere, and Newt kisses him, a slack and heavy meeting of their mouths that leaves Thomas fisting the blanket at Newt’s side.

Newt ends it and carefully scoots himself backward toward the center. God, he’s still nowhere near the headboard, and the headboard is not against a room-adjoining wall, and that’s… Well, it’s. _Everyone_ knows what it is. He leans back on his elbows. He’s not hard; the thrum, muted by the unwelcome thoughts he’s had all day, refuses to rise. He clears his throat, splays his hands over the duvet. “And what do I look like? In this vision of yours.”

To his surprise, Thomas moves away from the bed, and Newt nearly sits up, except that Thomas goes straight to the switch on the wall and shuts off the overhead light. Only the lamps are left, tossing shadows into each corner but bathing the bed in a warm, golden pool. Thomas’s fingers linger on the switch, his attention fled completely to Newt on the bed; the rest of the opulent room might as well not exist. Newt’s heart gives a ragged little shake in his chest.

He feels the flush traveling in the wake of Thomas’s eyes as they wander over him, and clears his throat again. “Well?”

“Comfortable. Like you own this place.” Thomas hasn’t moved, and Newt feels a jolt of uneasiness. This isn’t the goal, Thomas standing way over there while Newt prostrates himself on bolsters and goose-down. He worries at another button on his shirt, and in a blink, Thomas is there, stilling Newt’s hand with his own. “Let me?”

Newt nods, too far a-sea for words this time; Thomas releases one button and then another, the final one with an almost soundless sigh that Newt feels against his sternum. Thomas slides the shirt apart, baring his stomach, his chest. “God.”

A notion occurs; Newt cocks his head, the unease drowned by curiosity. “Am I half-dressed in this scene, by any chance?”

“Yes,” Thomas nearly whines, pushing forward, and this time Newt’s there to meet him, sweeping into Thomas’s mouth, arching up into the kiss. Thomas’s front rubs his chest, the fabric of his shirt unexpectedly coarse, tantalizing. Arousal surges through Newt, knocking the breath from his lungs; he scrabbles at Thomas’s shirt, forgetting himself, until suddenly he remembers and tries to pull back. “Sorry, I…”

Thomas shakes his head. His hands slide up Newt’s sides beneath the wings of his open shirt, all the way around to his back. “No, I want you to, why are you apologizing—” Newt arches against him again, lifting his hips to roll deliberately against Thomas’s, and Thomas’s whole body shakes. 

“Oh god,” Thomas breathes, staring down between them, “oh, thank god.”

Thomas was worried, Newt thinks in a daze, that he wouldn’t get aroused, that their first night together here would not end the way either of them hoped. His insides tighten in a chocolatey rush, inundating and unbearable, and he shuts his eyes, clutching Thomas to him, wondering if he’s about to come, ruin this or, well, not ruin, but slow it down right enough, tip it sideways and mess up Thomas’s fantasy. But he can’t help it. After all these years, he still can’t always predict what being with Thomas does to him. He bites his lip to stave it off, shocked at the ferocity of it. _“Tommy—”_

A hand plants itself firmly on his stomach, pushing him down to the mattress. Newt shudders. Squeezes his eyes shut and coasts back down until his pelvis just _aches_ and all he can hear are his own huffed breaths amid Thomas’s softer, slower ones.

Thomas’s hand moves, chaste strokes over his belly. “You okay?”

Newt nods. “Just…” Fuck, he _wants_ this for Thomas. Wants to make it real, this vision Tommy’s had in his head, and it’s not Thomas’s naked skin or the idea of Thomas’s dick inside him. It’s bringing this thing to life that has Newt rocketing toward the edge in lurching pulses. It’s doing this, for Thomas. 

“Better tell me the rest,” he slurs, eyes half-lidded as he gazes up and down the whole of Thomas. Thomas who might leave him. Thomas who might miss this place too damned much to stay in SF. “Or we’ll never make it.”

Thomas presses his chuckle into Newt’s throat, and Newt cradles his head, kisses the side of his face. Abandons the worry for a little while and gives himself over to the pleasure.

**

New York City is _cold._ Newt practically cleans out the closet again layering up, and he feels a little self-conscious about it, but the wind tonight is just piercing. He was here during a damned blizzard last time and now he can’t even weather a little breeze? Shit, if Thomas does decide to move back, Newt has no idea if he would survive coming with him.

Which… he’s not going to think about. They haven’t even been here four hours yet.

Thankfully, Thomas is equally bundled up, his step lively down the sidewalk despite the hordes of people. It’s full dark out now. Newt, accustomed to a gargantuan international city, still feels a bit pushed about, but Thomas slips through the crowd like he’s got a sixth sense for it. 

“This area is way richer than where I used to live, but there are a ton of great restaurants down here and you don’t have to take the subway to get to them. I used to rush here every lunch at eleven just to beat the crowd. Oh, here it is, thank god, I thought—” He scrabbles blindly for Newt, until Newt has to grab back just to keep Thomas’s hands out of his shirt, and pulls Newt into a closet of a restaurant.

Fifteen minutes later, the best banh mi in maybe the world—though likely not because this isn’t Viet Nam—melts in his mouth, dribbling sauce down the inside of his wrist, and Thomas is regarding him with not insubstantial heat because Newt may be groaning like a porn star.

“This is so bloody _good,”_ he manages between bites, and licks three fingers before Thomas snatches his hand and claims Newt’s thumb for himself.

Newt’s body flushes hot. He sways there on the sidewalk, watching Thomas’s cheeks hollow, watching his tongue curl around the tip of his thumb as Thomas lets it free. He doesn’t give up Newt’s hand, though: he drags Newt in slowly, staring at Newt’s lips from under his eyelashes.

“Hotel?” Newt rasps, not half a foot from Tommy’s face and unable to fixate on either his mouth or his luminous eyes, and so is darting back and forth between them.

“Just left,” Thomas says, sounding equally wrecked.

“Then it’ll be no problem getting back th—” He’s stopped by Thomas kissing him in the middle of the street, hauling him in and sweeping his mouth free of sauce and cilantro. Newt seizes round him, lightheaded, rolling the kiss into his favor until somebody bumps him on their way past and a car honks down the block. Thomas pulls away, breathing hard.

Three blocks and they’re back, slamming the double doors and shedding their coats, and then Newt drops to his knees and shoves Thomas’s hips back against the door, and the last thing he sees before he gets down to business is Thomas’s head snapping back, his face an openmouthed rictus of bliss.

**

If Newt could just _stay_ in this hotel, he absolutely would. They have a swimming pool sixty flights up, with huge windows that fill the space with light they would never get, were it at ground level. They serve a gourmet breakfast every day, included in the cost of their room and delivered right to their door, and there’s a gym somewhere around here. Not that Newt has time or inclination to run himself down on a treadmill: they’re constantly walking, from museum to park to restaurant, morning till dusk, Thomas dragging him from one fond memory to another. The only reason Newt is in enough shape for this is because whatever the length of Manhattan’s streets, they’ve got nothing on San Francisco’s hills.

But that’s the thing, isn’t it? One fond memory after another. Thomas’s love for this city is painfully dazzling. The years he spent here spool out under their feet as they trek from one borough to the next: favorite buildings with bizarre features; renovations that had been starting when he left, now finally finished; bodegas and eateries and hole-in-the-wall shops that he loved to visit.

“Perfect, check this out.” His fingers tighten between Newt’s as he tugs him into an alleyway the width of a bleacher row. Honestly, Newt’s not all that eager to be stepping into dark, mid-city corridors—he’s well aware of what goes on in the majority of them, thank you—but Thomas just turns him around five feet in and stands behind him, holding his shoulders with both hands. “Look.”

Newt finds, to his surprise, another matching alley across the street, shooting straight through the jungle of buildings. It’s slanted with shadow and there are other people standing along it, facing away from him and Thomas, but Thomas’s voice comes soft, just next to his ear: “Wait for it.”

Newt sneaks a gloved hand up to Thomas’s and squeezes, dutifully watchful. “Is this piss smell going to miraculously purify itself or something?”

“Ha, ha.” Thomas rubs his shoulders, and Newt snickers.

And then—

“Oh my god,” Newt breathes, as the setting sun drops to just the right angle, lancing golden-red light along the walls of the entire alley for blocks. The bricks go rusty and burnished, the damp floor of the alley gleams gold, and the last warmth hits Newt full in the face. Thomas’s hands tighten on his shoulders, then rub down his arms, coming to rest at his elbows; Newt leans back into Thomas’s chest, silent as the sun heats the narrow space.

A moment later, it’s gone: the sun is too low, the alleyway dim again. Newt turns his head, not knowing what he’s going to say, but Thomas just meets his mouth in an unhurried kiss.

“I’ve wanted to show you that for ages.”

Newt’s heart gives a tangled little throb. He looks down, then up again. Thomas’s smile has gone soft. “Thank you. For bringing me here.” 

Thomas leans in again, closing his eyes. Newt does not close his. He watches Thomas’s face as best he can while they kiss in the cooling air and tells himself to savor the moment.

**

The days tick away. Newt calls a halt to the museum visits on day four and circumvents Thomas’s disappointment by asking to go to Central Park. When Thomas lights up again immediately, Newt’s not sure how to feel.

The park is not as frosty as it was the first time he came here. It’s barely December, the winter weather just rolling up its sleeves, and there are still flowers out in places, still some leaves on the trees. Surprisingly, they enter through the same gate Newt wandered into so many years ago. Thomas tells him about a barbecue Glade had once over in the next grove, and Newt walks along behind him, hands in his pockets, nodding along. His chest feels hollow and too full all at once; the last time he traced these steps, he’d been fresh off his first encounter with Thomas since he’d left the West Coast, coming down from the excitement of the convention and half sad out of habit (and, unknowingly, mere hours away from devastating backslide sex in Thomas’s cramped Lower East Side flat). Wondering if he should just call a cab and go to the airport early. Wondering what Minho was up to. Wondering where in this giant metropolis Thomas lived.

Now Thomas links and relinks their hands, and throws back his head with laughter at Newt’s dry demolition of company barbecues in general. Now Thomas pulls his own hat off and tugs it down over Newt’s hair to keep him from shivering. Now, Newt’s fringe, blown about by the wind, covers his eyes for an impossible moment, and Newt fends off Thomas’s attempts to fix it until they’re both batting at each other and snorting with good humor.

“Come on, you have to be able to see,” Thomas chides. “This is my favorite part of the park.”

Of course it is. Of _course._ “I’ve been here,” Newt offers at last. He sweeps his hand out in an arc, to the bridge, the pond, the meandering path into the trees. “Right on this spot.”

Thomas walks backwards, eyebrows high. “You were? When?”

Newt’s cheeks heat; he shrugs and looks away, calculating the likelihood of hiding his blush in this light. “After that conference.” Not likely at all. “When… when it stormed and they grounded the flights? I came here right before I went to the airport.” 

Thomas’s steps slow, his eyes going far away. He looks around, his mouth a sober line, as though seeing the park with new eyes. Newt says nothing, just rests his gaze on the ground as he walks. Last time, he was pulling his suitcase along behind him, the wheels rattling over the pavement and silent in the icy grass, his clothes and shoes and tablet taking in the sights with him from inside their hard-shelled rolling container. 

That can’t be a night either of them remember gladly, as much as things eventually turned out alright. Newt’s own feelings on the matter are turbulent, a little nauseating.

“Wow,” Thomas says at last. “That’s…” He scrubs a hand backwards through his hair; his mouth curves into a wry sort of smile that makes Newt’s chest ache. 

If Thomas asked, Newt could recite that night’s events in perfect detail.

Newt shakes himself. “You hungry?” He thumbs over his shoulder toward where the gate sits beyond the trees. “There was a deli I went to last time, really good tuna melts. Don’t know if it’s still there, but we could give it a try.”

Thomas nods. “Tuna melts sound good.”

“And soup?”

“Perfect soup weather.” He smiles weakly, takes Newt’s outstretched hand again, and follows him out of the park.

**

The deli is no longer there, but there’s a brasserie, all shiny and copper inside with open piping up top and cozy little tables lining the wall across from the bar. Like most New York venues, it’s somehow twice as large inside as it looks from the sidewalk, and it’s crowded and noisy, stuffy in a good way. They shed their winter wear, shoving it against the walls in their booth and leaning into it to keep from falling off the tiny seats. Thomas springs for a semi-expensive wine, and they eat each other’s soups and grilled cheese and fish tacos, and they stay until it’s dark outside.

** 

Newt’s not entirely sure what to expect, but when Teresa’s door opens, she lets out a bright laugh and reaches around Thomas entirely to pull him into a hug. 

“Well, hi there, West Coast,” she says with a smirk. 

Newt hugs her back. “Hello, Islander.”

Teresa lets them in, gloms onto Thomas for long enough to reprimand him for waiting five whole days to come by, and then shuffles into her boots and coat. “Come on, we have reservations.”

And damn if Newt isn’t grateful he hung up his dress clothing: this place is downright swanky, and not in that ‘I’m a New York City restaurant, I’m swanky by default’ way that he’s been getting used to. No, Newt has a feeling that if he wasn’t wearing a tie, the maître d’ would have picked him up one handed and dumped him back out on the street.

It’s Teresa’s treat, which makes Newt feel slightly guilty. He knows she makes plenty of money; it turns out Thomas wasn’t fronting at all when he dubbed Teresa a genius. What Thomas has been doing on the subsidized housing front, Teresa has been cunningly weaving into the cohousing scene: more and more are springing up, lush rooftop gardens teeming with children and pets, manageable building costs, intercommunal childcare and healthcare facilities, and fully funded transport to choice schools through Teresa’s firm, WKD. Teresa’s a lot more political about it, a field Thomas detests with the aversion of a five-year-old, though he’s been having to butt up against it much more of late as he weaves his way through the mess that is Bay Area property law. In some ways, Newt is relieved that all he ever has to worry about is whether a design adheres to code. It’s an annoying code, sure, but he knows its persnickety arse like the back of his hand. 

Teresa is New York through and through, more so than Thomas. Knowing their history, Newt had been expecting a little distance, a perceptible if discrete effort at including him in the conversation, but Teresa meets his eye just as often as she meets Thomas’s, jokes with him and asks whether he’s given any thought to her bid for his latest round of apartment complex models.

“You know I would,” he says, “like, yesterday.” They all laugh. “But it has to go through contracting for approval and that takes a bloody age.” God, what he wouldn’t do to be able to sell his own designs, determine the bids himself and then work out a satisfactory compromise, write up his own contracts and just get rid of all the damned red tape. He smirks at Thomas in affinity for their shared grievances and finds him slouched back in his chair, pilsner glass in hand, watching Newt thoughtfully. 

_What?_ Newt mouths, but Thomas just blinks, smiles, and shakes his head.

“Jeez. You two.” Teresa slugs back her drink and signals the server with two lifted fingers. “Alright, anyone want a refill?”

All in all, it’s a nice night. If anyone gets sidelined, it’s Thomas, walking behind them down the street afterward with a faint smile on his mouth as Newt and Teresa sling architectural horror stories back and forth. When Teresa asks carefully and entirely too obviously about Brenda’s plans for the upcoming convention season, Newt hears Thomas’s amused snort behind them. 

**

He wakes up on their last full day here with the understanding solidified in his gut overnight, and it’s entirely unsettling. Thomas is still asleep, one arm flung over Newt’s middle while he snores lightly into his pillow. Newt lays his arm over Thomas’s, running his thumb across the crease at his elbow, and really looks at him. Dark, unruly hair, open mouth, his whole body tangibly heavy with sleep. He’s in his regular sleepwear: cotton t-shirt full of tiny holes along the collar and loose plaid boxers. Newt doesn’t need to see them to picture the whole of it; he’s seen Thomas splayed out plenty of times over the last three years, his legs kicked across rumpled blankets and his back twisted in a way that only a twenty-something could manage to come back from, but there’s a laxness to him today that is not familiar. Not something Newt’s seen much of in SF anyway. 

He fights it for a minute, then gives up and brushes his fingers through Thomas’s fringe, easing it gently off his forehead. Thomas’s lips smack together and part again, and he relaxes even further into the bed. Lets out another snore. Newt grins, sudden and hard, then sobers in the next second.

Alright.

He gets up, pulls the drapes tighter to shut out the light, and goes out to the main room to order breakfast. By the time it arrives, there’s stirring from the bedroom; Newt thanks the room attendant and wheels the cart in through the doorway, up to the edge of the bed. Thomas has rolled over onto his back, his eyelids slitted open, but Newt knows he’s still mostly asleep. He climbs onto the bed with one of the plates—waffles, the eggs benedict he’s been eyeing all week, and enough bacon to feed five—and settles close to Thomas’s side. “Hey, you.”

Thomas mumbles, rolls his head, and for a second, sinks back. Then his eyes blink open. He gives a full-bodied huff and stretches like a lemur, turning to curl around Newt’s leg. “Hey.” His voice is gravelly, untroubled. “Time’s it?”

“Some hour on a Saturday.”

Thomas smiles against his thigh, and plants a soft kiss there before sitting up. He rubs his face with the heel of his hand; his eyes are already climbing over the plate in Newt’s lap. “That for us?”

“No, it’s for the neighbor in the corner suite. _Yes,_ you nit.”

Thomas kisses him with a hum, morning breath and all, plying Newt’s mouth until he’s satisfied. “Such a good provider. So what did you want to do today?”

 _Stay in._ It’s hard to keep it quiet. But he doesn’t want to taint this room with what he needs to say, the questions he needs to ask. Whatever happens, he wants them to be able to come back here afterward and fall into each other, and not think about the future.

He knows this is a damned honeymoon suite, or could easily be under the right application of rose petals and chilled wine. He also knows that that is not what Thomas meant by getting them this room for the week. Thomas is still reserved around him, waiting for Newt’s cue when he’s unsure of the terrain. But he’s no less forward about what he’s thinking. Now, when he wants to know if Newt’s up for, well, anything, he asks straight out, and whenever Newt says no, he nods and moves on. If this vacation were more than what it is, Newt would know it. 

Besides, Newt’s the one who suggested this trip. A decision he’s starting to regret fiercely. “Maybe go out to Battery Park. Or see Ground Zero?”

“Sure,” Thomas says easily, but there’s no extra light there, nothing but curiosity in his eyes. No specific memories in either of those locations, it seems. Newt relaxes a little. 

“No rush, though,” he says, suddenly not eager to leave. He settles back against the headboard and grabs a piece of toast. Thomas nods and leans against him, turning back to their breakfast.

**

But he can’t think. The city washes by him in muted color, a mishmash of overlapping sound and moving parts. Newt can’t for the life of him say where all they went today, but he is suddenly _intensely_ aware that they’ve stopped: inside, where it’s warm, full of yellow light and mellow music. The place isn’t large, but it is long, encased in rich wood paneling that feeds out into little booths along one wall, a line of stools against a heavy oak bar where two bartenders hand out pint after pint to a full house. 

Outside, the city dips into dusk. Thomas, unwrapped from his thick wool coat, the beanie with _I Apple NYC_ across the front, and matching black scarf and gloves, waves his hands around, detailing his very first pub crawl in this neighborhood. “This place was even smaller then, if you can believe it. They knocked out a wall somewhere; I think it only went as far back as that first Carlsberg tap.”

Newt smiles into his IPA. “That’s pretty small.”

“There must have been twenty of us, we were spilling out onto the street.” He swipes Newt’s glass, replaces it with his own, and takes a swig. “That’s really good. Smooth.”

He hands it back. Newt turns the golden remains of his pint toward the light. Almost opaque, and soft as silk. “It’s local, so they say.”

A server arrives with their food, and… honestly Newt can’t remember what he ordered. Lasagna, by the looks of it, so that’s alright. Garlic bread, so that’s more than alright. He smacks Thomas’ sneaking hand away from one of the slices. “Oi, get out of it.”

“Please,” Thomas scoffs as another plate plunks down. He slides it across the table to Newt. “I got you extra.”

Indeed, four gorgeous slices just smothered in butter and garlic line the platter. Newt snatches two, a piece in each hand, making Thomas laugh outright. It warms Newt’s insides in a slow wash, filling every cranny, and they grin at each other like little kids.

“So.” Thomas upends the ketchup bottle and pounds a sizeable amount onto the side of his plate. “You’ve been kind of quiet today.”

So much for diverting relaxation. Newt’s heart begins to pound. He concentrates on cutting his lasagna. “We’ve been busy.”

“That we have.” Silence for a moment while Thomas chews and Newt savors the first melty bite of cheese and mushrooms. “You just seem… a little distracted?”

Really though, what’s the point in ignoring it? He’d always meant things to come to a head today, hadn’t he, except he’s beginning to realize that no amount of preparation will ever make him ready. He feels like he’s standing on an edge, teetering, and the immensity of the drop just continues to escape him. He knows it’s there, knows he’s about to plunge into it, and yet he can’t seem to grasp the full potential.

Thomas is beautiful in this light. He’s beautiful everywhere, but here, his cheeks rosed from the cold, feet knocking against Newt’s under the table, he’s just… Newt plays idly with his bread, drinking Thomas in. It’s possible he’ll never get tired of this vintage. “I want to ask you something.”

“Shoot,” Thomas says, popping another fry loaded with ketchup into his already full mouth.

“Would you rather come back here?”

Thomas pauses mid-chew and glances around. “Here?”

“To New York City.” It’s shockingly easy to say. Newt knows better. The deluge is only barely at bay, sloshing around his ankles and just waiting for Thomas’s confirmation to come crashing in. He smiles, not having to fake the fondness as Thomas grabs for his glass of water, washing down his food. “Anyone can see you love it here.”

Thomas takes a mighty swallow, wiping his mouth with an absent hand and hunching forward with a frown. “Newt… What?”

“I can see how the regulations are getting to you. Back home.” Is it really home, though, to Thomas? How can it be when this place still slides onto him like a glove? Newt’s voice is shaking now, done with holding off the inevitable, and Newt curses himself for giving in so fast. He just wanted a few minutes to… to sort this _out,_ damn it, without feeling like he’s coercing the response he really wants. “Do you want to move back?”

Strangely—dismayingly—Thomas relaxes. He stirs another fry through his mound of ketchup and cocks his head, squinting at the far wall. “Things are definitely easier over here.”

 _Are._ Not _were._ And they’re not easier, per se, just different when you’re completely used to another half of the country’s way of doing things. Newt’s heart sinks, and then Thomas sits forward again, crossing his arms on the table. “Actually, I’ve been meaning to talk to you about that, too.”

 _About leaving?_ Newt shakes the instinct away, but the damage is done. The despair is immediate: he knows his life is on the West Coast, fully enough that it would take ages to break away, even if he did decide to move out here. He’d miss his sister and his mum, Minho and Brenda and Gally, Aris and his corner café, the sound of the fog horns and pea soup that makes them necessary, the slope of Angel Island out in the bay and the little jaggedness of Alcatraz next to it. And while he likes NYC well enough, already he carries a heaviness in his gut, a significant part of him that’s counting the days until he can go back to his little flat above the bay, walk down to the trolley for work, surprise Thomas at his front door with takeout for dinner.

“I’ve been thinking…” Thomas pauses. He reaches out to stroke the back of Newt’s forefinger where his hand rests on the tabletop. Thomas takes a deep, audible breath and lets it out. “Of leaving Glade.”

“Of…” Newt blinks. “Oh.” He’s not sure what to do with that, where to go. But the direction is likely the same, isn’t it? After all, they were just talking about Thomas’s choice of home turf. “You _were_ thinking of coming back here, then?”

“Well, I _thought_ about it, yeah.” Thomas shrugs, a tiny frown between his brows. Newt presses his lips together.

Yes, he’d feared it. _Yes,_ he’d accepted it as a possibility. But part of him obviously has not prepared itself for it as literal truth. He rubs his chest, frowning out the bar’s window. “Well, I could—I mean, there are plenty of companies. Places. And there are design firms here, obviously.” Unless that’s not what Thomas means, but why would they spend this week wrapped in each other if Thomas isn’t thinking about Newt coming along? Thomas is not cruel; his modus operandi has never been buttering up to soften a blow. “God, we’ve… We could spend tomorrow morning. _You_ could, looking, I mean.” He gestures, knowing it falls well short of conveying the vast tracts of lofts and condominiums and houses seeded throughout Manhattan. He doesn’t know where to start, but Thomas must. “The market’s kind of stupid right now, you’d need a good turnaround on your place—”

“Newt, I don’t want to live in New York.” Thomas’s eyes flick down, up to Newt’s face, and down again. “I want to live with you.”

And Newt’s thoughts fuzz right out.

When he finally comes back, when the low-level buzz has fled and color has bled back into the walls, Thomas is still talking, smirking grimly down at his plate. “…believe I said that. But it figures. This so isn’t what I wanted to ask you tonight.” 

He rubs his face, looking exhausted, and smiles anemically at Newt. “I, uh. Sorry. This really wasn’t—”

“Yes,” Newt says, and Thomas’s mouth snaps shut. Newt slides forward, grips Thomas’s hand, getting mostly thumb, squeezing all the same. “Thomas. Yes.”

“You… Really?” Thomas’s breath comes faster, Newt sees it quickening in the flush of his cheeks. “You want to, to, okay, we can, an apartment maybe—”

“Your place.” Thomas’s hand shudders under his, fingers clamping tight around Newt’s. “I like your house. Your house is bigger.”

“Yeah, but it should be ours, not mine, you shouldn’t feel like it’s not yours.”

“I don’t.”

Thomas laughs, sudden and incredulous. “Oh my god. Oh my god, _Newt.”_

“You really don’t want to come back here?” He has to say it, he can’t leave anything uncertain. “Even though it sucks back home? It’s stressing you out.”

“I do not want to come back here,” Thomas says, deliberate. That same smile plays around his mouth, happiness flickering like flame in his eyes. “The rent alone makes me lightheaded, buying would probably cause a seizure. And my mom’s back there, and you’re there.”

Newt kisses his hand, pressing his mouth hard against the backs of his fingers and startling Thomas into silence. After a second, Thomas strokes his thumb over Newt’s cheek, the angle wrong for anything more than a fleeting skim. Newt kisses that, too, right on the pad.

“Newt, did you really think that I—”

“I’d have come with you,” he rushes out, and in that instant, despite the property value and leaving his family, he knows it’s true. He’d follow Thomas anywhere. He’s not ready to lose him again.

Thomas’s throat clicks as he swallows. He glances around, the blood high in his cheeks, and sits up straighter. “I, um, okay. Okay, _good,_ that’s what I…”

“What did you want to talk about?” Newt asks, suddenly wondering what on earth they just bulldozed over with this abrupt proposal. But Thomas shakes his head firmly.

“Nope. Not tonight. Tonight I’m going to bask in this.” His free hand flicks frantically between them, then clamps around Newt’s wrist. “We’re doing this, we’re really…?”

Newt leans across the table and kisses him hard on the mouth, and Thomas’s grunt of surprise lapses into a fragile moan. He chases Newt’s mouth when Newt finally leans away, and someone wolf whistles. They break apart to see two women at the bar toasting them with full pints. 

“What’s the occasion, boys?” one of them calls.

Thomas’s face goes bright red. It’s adorable. But he smiles back gamely and lifts their joined hands. “He’s moving in with me.”

A cheer goes up around the tiny bar, and now it’s Newt’s turn to go utterly red. But he can’t keep the smile off his face, and Thomas is smiling, too.

**

There are ten jets in this bathtub. _Ten._ It’s searing white, all smooth curves. They fit well enough, but Thomas keeps snaking his nose back to nuzzle under Newt’s chin, and Newt is snorting giggles, digging his fingers into Thomas’s ribs and making him seize into a yelping ball. 

There’s a lot of water on the floor.

“God.” Thomas relaxes back. His skin is slick and hot, plastered to Newt’s front from neck to navel. Beyond, really; every shift rubs him gently against Newt in a slosh of warm water, but there’s no intent to it, just the careless motions of resettling. “Really glad we got this room.”

“Want a jacuzzi tub at home?” Newt murmurs into his neck, mouthing droplets of water and sweat as they trickle from Thomas’s hairline. It makes his stomach flutter, planning like this for their house. Their living space. Newt wants a jacuzzi tub if it means having Thomas in it with him like this; he’ll probably waterlog them both with how often he makes them use it. He lets himself fantasize. Glass doors on the shower. Built-in bench. Pull-down nozzle with a pulse massage head. He knows just what he’d do to Thomas with that. 

“Mmm,” Thomas hums into a kiss, slipping a wet hand around Newt’s neck to hold him in place. For the second time, he turns over in Newt’s lap, and Newt reaches beneath the water, bringing him off in slow, sweet pulls. 

Thomas slumps into him with a thready sigh. The easy silence after his usual vocal climax hovers like sugary steam. “You want to come?” he slurs thickly into Newt’s collarbone. 

Newt shakes his head. Thomas murmurs and finds Newt’s mouth again, an eternity of lazy kisses and wandering hands that lasts until the water grows tepid. They climb to their feet eventually, and drift over to the shower stall where they actually soap off. Thomas slings his arms around Newt from behind, the stream of fresh water sluicing down their bodies. Newt shuts his eyes, relishes the thrum against his scalp, over his face. They make use of the bathrobes—and hey, Thomas wants some of those too, even though he’s got a perfectly nice terrycloth back home that just hangs on his bathroom door adding _atmosphere._ Which Newt points out, which leads to fingers digging into _his_ ribs, and eventually they’re diagonal on the bed, bathrobes half off and Newt’s leg hanging over the edge, the other locked around Thomas’s thigh as he rolls his hips against Thomas’s belly, Thomas holding almost perfectly still, shaking with the effort, his hands anchored at Newt’s waist and his mouth following each of Newt’s broken cries with a heady kiss until Newt falls apart in an incoherent heap.

“Love it when you’re loud,” Thomas says into his jaw.

“Sure makes for a change, doesn’t it?” he cracks, and Thomas swats him with a pillow.

A second later, Thomas rolls to the side. His erection is obvious, but he’s just looking at Newt, tracing his hand up and down Newt’s bare stomach almost absently. The scrutiny is keen, and close; Thomas can go for whole minutes like this, seemingly uncaring of his own state, whatever it happens to be. It triggers the revival of a question:

“You do love this place, though.”

Thomas doesn’t say anything immediately. “Well, yeah. It’s a great city.”

Newt smiles. It’s fleeting.

Thomas comes up on one elbow. “You really thought I wanted to move back?”

Newt shrugs and keeps his mouth shut. Suddenly his throat is teeming, too full. Thomas runs his knuckle down the bridge of Newt’s nose.

“It’s not because I miss this place.” His words are slower, as though he’s feeling them out as they come. “It’s you, here. I wanted _you_ to see it. I just… What I love about it is showing it all to you.”

Newt swallows. To distract himself, he catches Thomas’s hand and rubs the back of it with his thumb. “Tell me what you were really going to ask me tonight.”

“It’s not—”

“If you say ‘important,’ I will leave you here and go take another bath. Clearly it was significant.”

Thomas looks briefly away, but then sighs and turns back. The last weight falls away; his eyes are a liquid gold in the lamplight. “We should start our own firm.”

Newt blinks. He perches up on his elbow, scanning Thomas’s face. “What do you mean?”

“Leave Glade.” Thomas struggles up to mirror Newt’s position, tangling their fingers between them. “Leave Last City. Go into business together.”

“You mean get away from the conglomerate regulations,” Newt feels out slowly, and Thomas squeezes his hand.

“Design and implementation all in one place. We know the behind-the-scenes pretty well. We could make it more personal. Hire consultants, take our own jobs and run them the way we want to. Set our own rules.”

“That’s a huge risk.” But his pulse is racing, kicking against his ribs in an excited drumbeat. “It won’t be easy. There are things a big firm can do that—”

“—a little firm can’t, I know. But the two of us, you and me…” Thomas says, gesturing between them with their joined hands. “We could do it.”

They look at each other for a long moment.

They _could._ With Thomas’s reputation and both their achievements in the field, they wouldn’t have any trouble finding clients, at least. “Take a lot of work.”

Thomas shrugs one shoulder. “Doesn’t have to happen right away. Just wanted to float the idea. See what you thought.”

Newt looks down at their twined hands. Then he smiles slowly at up Thomas. Thomas smiles back.

~fin~

**Author's Note:**

> Title and lyric at the beginning of the story borrowed from Lauv's _I Like Me Better_. Thank you so much to coffeejunkii for once again being a fantastic beta, for continuously indulging my insane crush on this pairing, and for cheering me on.


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